LOS ANGELES _ Los Angeles County prosecutors on Monday are expected to announce criminal charges against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has scheduled an 11 a.m. news conference, and her office would not comment on what she was going to announce. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would only say that charges would be announced. Authorities have been investigating allegations from several women that Weinstein attacked them in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills for months. Weinstein has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Charges in Los Angeles would only deepen the legal peril facing Weinstein, who appeared in a downtown Manhattan courtroom Monday. Jury selection will begin Tuesday in his trial there. Weinstein is charged with first-degree rape, two counts of predatory sexual assault, one count of first-degree sexual assault and one count of third-degree rape. Mimi Haleyi, a former production assistant for Weinstein's company, has accused the mogul of assaulting her in 2006. A second unidentified woman also told police Weinstein attacked her in New York in 2013.
A number of other women who have accused Weinstein of assaulting them in hotel rooms, including an Italian actress who has accused Weinstein of assaulting her in Beverly Hills in 2013, are expected to testify at his New York trial.
Weinstein has become inextricably linked to the #MeToo movement since 2017, when more than 80 women began making sexual battery and assault accusations against him.
He has denied any wrongdoing, and his attorneys have repeatedly tried to paint most of the encounters as consensual. In the case of the Italian model, his attorneys say he never went to her hotel room.
The expected charges, the first announced by Lacey's office, stem from an investigation launched by a task force formed in 2017 to review sexual abuse allegations against high-profile entertainment figures.
In all, the Los Angeles district attorney's office reviewed accusations from eight alleged victims of sexual battery or assault against Weinstein _ four brought by the Los Angeles Police Department and four investigated by police in Beverly Hills.
Lacey's special task force was formed to "ensure a uniform approach to the legal review and possible prosecution of any case that meets both the legal and factual standards for criminal prosecution."
Defense attorneys for Weinstein in New York and Los Angeles could not immediately be reached for comment.
